Critical Thinking and Computer Conferencing: A Model and Tool to Assess Cognitive Presence

The adoption of computer-mediated communication (CMC) in higher education has far out-paced our understanding of how this medium should be used so as to best promote higher-order learning. This medium is substantively different, in several important ways, from face-to-face classroom teaching. A number of other scholars are now trying to remedy this deficiency in our understanding by studying various aspects of the use of CMC in this educational environment. --
DR Garrison, T Anderson, W Archer, T Context - American Journal of Distance Education, 2001

On the Concepts of Knowledge and Learning...

A research paper about the diversity of concepts of learning and knowledge and the variety of ideas about definitions. It studies the meaning of Socratic methods in the knowledge society and analyses some examples of knowledge creation from Plato and Dewey as it focuses on the seven arts of reasoning and rhetoric of inquiry from the point of view of learning and knowledge.

Michigan Considers Requiring High-School Students to Take at Least One Online Course

The Michigan State Board of Education is set to approve a new graduation requirement today that would make every high-school student in the state take at least one online course before receiving a diploma.

International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences Announced the Winners for 2005

On May 1st, the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences announced the winners of the eighth annual Webby Awards. http://www.webbyawards.com/ . I encourage you to look at these sites and see how instructional design methods, format and layout were used in development.

Many of these winners used interaction methods to convey a message, information and promote education for their audiences. The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences is dedicated to the creative, technical, and professional progress of the Internet and evolving forms of interactive media for effective transference of information and learning. The Webby Awards is the leading international honors for web sites. Nominees are judged on their content, structure and navigation, visual design, functionality, interactivity, and overall experience.

This Years Educational Winners are:

Education Webby Award Winner: Knowing Poe http://knowingpoe.thinkingport.org/

PeopleÂ’s Voice Winner: Monterey Bay Aquarium http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/

Other Educational Nominees are:

· BBC Worldwide Interactive Learning http://www.open2.net/

· 24 Hour Museum http://www.show.me.uk/

· Traditions of the Sun: Chaco Culture National Historical Park http://www.traditionsofthesun.org/

And Last Year's Winner for Education include:

· Webby Award Winner BBC-Human Body http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody

· People's Voice Winner NationalGeographic.com Education www.nationalgeographic.com/education

Other Education Nominees were:

· BBC - Human Body http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody

· Halifax Explosion http://www.cbc.ca/halifaxexplosion

· NationalGeographic.com Education http://www.nationalgeographic.com/education

· Newseum - The Interactive Museum of News http://www.newseum.org

· Shakespeare: Subject to Change http://www.ciconline.org/bdp1/

Other - Honorable Mention Winners were:

Two of the world's leading public broadcasting networks won multiple awards.

· PBS.org won for Best Television and its P.O.V. Borders won for Best Broadband. http://www.pbs.org/pov/borders/index_flash.html

· BBC-affiliated web sites received three awards: BBC Human Body (Best Education)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody

· BBC News (Best News) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news

· BBC Sport (Best Sports) http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport

Share your favorite Educational site >>>

A taxonomy for instructional design: Levels of teaching

The presenters will focus on a pragmatic and effective taxonomy to inform the selection of educational methods and guide instructional design and the use of technology. Levels of the taxonomy are defined by how questions are used.

Animated Pedagogical Agent to Assist Learners

This paper examines the use of a pedagogical agent to help learners develop their electronic portfolio. Contribution to the current literature is twofold. First, the rising use of electronic portfolios demands tools to support and motivate learners. Second, the use of pedagogical agents may prove beneficial in the development of electronic portfolios, but has not yet been exploited.

American Sign Language Digitalized

Avenue ASL, an integrated software environment to capture, evaluate, self-assess, and manage American Sign Language (ASL) performance, is being developed at the University of Minnesota to improve student language learning and increase the efficiency of existing assessment/instructional processes. The software enables students to capture videos of several signlanguage assessment tasks and submit them via a computer network for assessment based on research.

Fair Use Policies Revisited

We should periodically look at Fair Use policies, especially for the electronic environment. Copyright is very much in a state of flux at the moment, with rules being reconsidered at both national levels and at the international level through bodies such as the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It is arguable and demonstrable that the rights enjoyed by publishers are currently being addressed. The copyright protections that we normally associate with print also govern the use of audio, video, images, and text on the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW). The intuitive interface of the WWW makes it easy for the computer user to copy and use images, text, video and other graphics that are likely to be protected by copyright. The University of Maryland University College provides educators with fair use guidelines to avoid copyright violations and legally use copyrighted materials to enrich their learning environment.

For more, check Stanford University Library &/or a synopsis of "Copyright in an Electronic Environment, " the Copyright Law in the Electronic Environment and a new section 512 of the Copyright Act provides greater certainty that educational institutions providing network access for faculty, staff, and students will not, merely by doing so, become liable for infringing material transmitted over the network. ."In addition, review the Government's contribution to academic learning for enrolled students in DL.

True Believers: Digital Game-Based Learning in the Military

Business people are slowly “getting it.” Schools “get it” here and there. But the U.S. Military “gets it” big time. The Military has embraced Digital Game-Based Learning with all the fervor of true believers. Why? Because it works for them. And trust me; the guys in charge of training at the Pentagon are a very sharp group. They have seen and evaluated everything.

Do They Really Think Differently? by Marc Prensky

In Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants: Part II, Marc Prensky suggests our children today are being socialized in a way that is vastly different from their parents. The numbers are overwhelming: over 10,000 hours playing video games, over 200,000 emails and instant messages sent and received; over 10,000 hours talking on digital cell phones; over 20,000 hours watching TV (a high percentage fast speed MTV), over 500,000 commercials seen—all before the kids leave college. And, maybe, at the very most, 5,000 hours of book reading. These are today’s “Digital Native” students.

In Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants: Part I, he discusses how the differences between our Digital Native students and their Digital Immigrant teachers lie at the root of a great many of today’s educational problems. I suggested that Digital Natives’ brains are likely physically different as a result of the digital input they received growing up. And I submitted that learning via digital games is one good way to reach Digital Natives in their “native language.”

The Wikiversity Project

As the Blogging and "WIKI" worlds expand and evolve, this site is proving to be most interesting to those focused on the educational environment. The purpose of the Wikiversity project, which will ultimately reside at www.wikiversity.org, is to build an electronic institution of learning that will be used to test the limits of the wiki model both for developing electronic learning resources as well as for teaching and for conducting research and publishing results (within a policy framework developed by the community).

Stop by and participate...

A Guide to Professional Conduct in the Field of Educational Communications and Technology

On the question of Ethics, it seems to have entered into all areas of professional life. The reputations and careers of prominent politicians have been tarnished by evidence of ethical misconduct. Well-known television evangelists have been caught in improper behavior. Manufacturers of critical parts of airplanes and other equipment have been detected substituting inexpensive, inferior parts in the manufacturing process. Sports heroes have been suspended, banned, or had their accomplishments stricken from the record books because of rule violations or illegal acts. Wealthy, highly respected financial flgures have been imprisoned for illegal dealings on the stock market.

Major universities have received sanctions for improper recruitment and support of athletes. Producers of canned food products have been convicted of using less nutritious, substitute ingredients in place of those listed on their product labels. Computer hackers have illegally gained entry into databases for personal gain. Researchers have fabricated data in order to generate academic publications. Pharmaceutical companies have been indicted for bribing federal agencies to approve their products for release on the marketplace. Police officers have been caught collaborating with criminals in order to profit from illegal activities. Indeed, even a major education agency has been convicted and penalized for illegally duplicating and distributing copyrighted materials.

Whew~ What about Education?

Glossary Terms in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education

The Higher Educational Academy compiled an extensive and current glossary list of terms and acronyms for Learning and Teaching in the Higher Education environment. This is an excellent resource to have available while constructing/developing curriculum.

Hypothesized performance on complex tasks as a function of scaled instructional strategies

A renouned professor, M. David Merrill, provides us with a set of instructional strategy principles in his paper he identifies that have been prescribed by a number of different instructional theories and recommended practices. He then proposes a set of hypotheses for the interrelationships among these principles. This author maintains that it is possible to ascertain if learners have acquired specified knowledge and skill from instruction.

Welcome to Weblogs in Higher Education

As Blogs and Weblogs bubble up in the Educational environment, this blog / weblog site is devoted to understanding the best pedagogical and other uses of weblogs and wikis in higher education from experts, researchers and you. Expand your understanding ...

Brain-Based Learning: Possible Implications for Online Instruction

Brain-based learning and strategies emerging from the neuroscience’s body of research are still at a “buzzword stage.” Other valid theories concerning intelligence and brain-based learning (Lucas, 2004) are available.

As higher education institutions in the United States push for more online courses, instructors are faced with new issues and challenges related to teaching in the online learning environment. Regardless, of whether higher education’s impetus is fueled by cost-saving measures (Jaffee, 1998) or the belief that online courses answer the challenge of rapid tuition increased or changing student body (Feenberg, 1999; Hara & Kling, 2000), one issue that continues to resurface, concerning online courses is to how best to deliver the information and facilitate learning for the student (Bolliger & Martindale, 2004). Student learning is impacted by how the human brain accepts and processes information delivered in the course.

~ Time Sensitive Information ~

ONLINE WORKSHOP -
TEACHING AT A DISTANCE: FROM CONCEPT TO PRACTICE

You are invited to join other educators in a 5 week online learning experience focused on distance education. Modeling the very best in distance education pedagogy, "TEACHING AT A DISTANCE: FROM CONCEPT TO PRACTICE" involves you in every aspect of distance education by involving you as a distance education learner.

Join Dr. Joe Levine (Michigan State University, Michigan, USA), Dr. Jose Chotguis (Federal University of Parana, Curitiba, Brazil) and Dr. Stanley Mpofu (National University of Science and Technology, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe) for an active look at the world of distance education.

This five week online program (October 2 - November 5, 2005) is designed for educators involved with the design, development, delivery and evaluation of distance education programs. It is focused very directly on
the learner in distance education with a major foundational theme each week which examines key concepts and ideas to support the effective use of distance education as an instructional strategy to bridge the distance between learners and learning resources.

Week 1 Theme ~ The Framework of Distance Education
Week 2 Theme ~ The Learner in Distance Education
Week 3 Theme ~ Distance Education Instructional Strategies
Week 4 Theme ~ Implementing Distance Education
Week 5 Theme ~ Evaluating Distance Education

All participants will receive a printed copy of (and online access to) the soon-to-be-released book - "Making Distance Education Work: Understanding Learning and Learners At a Distance". The workshop has
been set up so that it's possible for each participant to interact in an entirely independent/asynchronous manner - allowing you to be involved when it best fits your own day-to-day schedule.

Enrollment will be limited to 30 participants. Cost for the entire workshop is $190. For complete information about "Teaching At A Distance: From Concept to Practice" and an online Registration Form, please go to:

http://www.learnerassociates.net/tad/

Using Instructional Design Strategies To Foster Curiosity.

Educators and instructional designers recognize that instilling curiosity in students encourages their disposition to learn. When students are magnetized by a new idea or a new situation and are compelled to explore further, regardless of external rewards, they can be said to be truly motivated. In each new project, they discover seeds for a future project or a new question to examine. Curiosity is a heightened state of interest resulting in exploration, and its importance in motivating scholarship cannot be ignored. Read further for stimulation ideas on encouraging curiosity to stimulate learning...

Professors Give Mixed Reviews of Internet's Educational Impact

When asked whether the Internet has changed the quality of student work, check out the results of the nationwide survey, of 2,316 faculty members, was conducted in May 2004 by Steve Jones, a professor of communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Camille Johnson-Yale, a graduate student in communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The researchers have been presenting highlights of their findings at academic conferences, and they have submitted a report on the survey to a peer-reviewed scholarly journal.

This article was originally shared by Charlie Balch on Penn State's DEOS listserv. Interesting!

Ethical Computer Behavior ??

FCW’s story, Group says kids should learn cybersecurity discusses the release of a report from the Cyber Security Industry Alliance called Teaching Children Cyber Security and Ethics. The report calls for the creation of a national program (like “Just Say No” or "No Child Left Behind") to promote cyber security awareness among kids in schools.

I don’t think the states would stand for yet another unfounded mandate, so I don’t think this is a viable proposal, though it does raise a red flag about cybersecurity and kids.

Nevertheless, Susan Miller said, my hackles were initially up over the idea that the government was going to set a standard for ethical computer behavior. But then, I remembered a story a friend told me. She was taking an ethics class (might have even been computer ethics) at a community college, and the instructor posed a hypothetical question: If you were a contractor working on the computer system at the Department of Motor Vehicles and had access to individual driving records, would it be ok to look up (not change, just view) your friends’ records? Almost all the students said yes. And what was worse, they didn’t see the problem with that. A victimless crime.

So maybe we do need some ethics foisted upon us.

In my (limited) experience says Susan Miller, I’ve found government workers have pretty high ethical standards -- use of computers, communication with vendors, accepting lunches, etc. This heightened ethical sense may be because there are very clear rules about what’s permissible and what’s not. Or it may be the result of working in a job that’s under scrutiny from Congress, watchdog groups, taxpayers.

What’s your experience?

The Statistics on the Average American Internet User's Knowledge.

The average American user is not sure what podcasting is, what RSS feed does, or what the term "phishing" means while using the internet. If you are into statistics, yes statistics, then check out what else the PEW/INTERNET discovered in their July 2005 survey...

Closing in on the Digital Divide?

LANGKAWI, June 17 (Bernama) -- Chipmaker company, Intel Corporation is looking at wiring up to 300 universities in the Asia Pacific under its Mobile Initiative for Learning in Education (MILE) programme by end of next year, its director for Southeast Asia, Peter Chong said Friday.

He said that this was part of Intel's vision to "tune-up" the whole group of Asia population into a 'digital Asia's community' in the future (getting people to embrace information communications technology (ICT) and bridge the digital gap).

"The plan is to move Asia into a digital knowledge-based society," he told reporters at the Intel's Media Day.

"We want to transform the traditional boundary-limited university campuses into roaming, all access research libraries, allowing students and lecturers a more flexible learning and teaching environment," he said.

Web Links for Writers

A web site loaded with categorized links from Writers' Resources, Source-Based Writing, Documentation Guides - All Styles, and Essay Writings for your review. Definately, no writer's block here! http://www.gc.maricopa.edu/English/writing.html

Technology in Education

If put to more productive use, educational technology will live up to the transformational dreams of its loudest promoters. Essays by Lowell Monke and Frederick M. Hess, both former teachers, explore the distance between today’s pedagogies and the classroom of tomorrow—and ask how to bridge the gap.

Constructivism and the Five E's

It is up to the teacher to facilitate the constructivistic learning process. The structure of the learning environment should promote opportunities and events that encourage and support the building of understanding.

Classroom Management

Elements of classroom management vary. Since many professors teach for years without encountering some of the management instances we discuss here, our intent is to move beyond identification of classroom problems to suggest preventative strategies and practical solutions. For some faculty, teaching comes quite naturally and the notion of management in the classroom is irrelevant. But situations within the classroom do occasionally occur that lead us to seek out advice in order to maintain the learning environment for students not to mention our personal sanity.

Classroom Assessment Techniques

"Classroom Assessment is a simple method faculty can use to collect feedback, early and often, on how well their students are learning what they are being taught. The purpose of classroom assessment is to provide faculty and students with information and insights needed to improve teaching effectiveness and learning quality. College instructors use feedback gleaned through Classroom Assessment to inform adjustments in their teaching. Faculty also share feedback with students, using it to help them improve their learning strategies and study habits in order to become more independent, successful learners.... Classroom Assessment is one method of inquiry within the framework of Classroom Research, a broader approach to improving teaching and learning."

Case Method Website: Introduction and Welcome

We are always looking for a new and improved venue to enhance student learning. Why not use a "Case Study?" For our purposes, a "case" is a text that typically describes a real-life situation, giving information but not analysis (see further Case Learning, Case Discussion, Student Guidelines for Case Discussions in the How to Teach with Cases section of this site). Teaching with cases involves a model of facilitating a discussion in which the students develop analyses of the situation, often through collaborative work, role playing, and intensive discussion, debate, and dialogue. Case teaching is familiar to those who have worked or studied in professional schools such as law or business, but it is a relatively recent innovation in more standard social science disciplines, where a small but growing number of faculty across the U.S. have been working to popularize it as a pedagogical option.

Demonstrating Transformation in eLearning

Demonstrating Transformation: A step by step guide to e-learning, inspection and self assessment for colleges and providers of adult education and training. Look here for advice and guidance on inspection and e-learning from an inspector’s point of view, checklists for nominees and 10 new case studies demonstrating good practice across the sector. Also available is the new interactive version of the NLN ILT self-assessment tool, which can be used to reflect on how far colleges or individual teams have come in their use of information and learning technologies.

Webquest Toolkit

The Community Learning ResourceTeam has developed an online toolkit that will guide you through the process of learning about and building your own Webquest. Read about Webquests below, then visit the toolkit, where you can go through the Webquest process step-by-step, create your own Webquest using the template of your choice, then save it on our website for use with learners anywhere, anytime. The toolkit also includes links to a range of live and different Webquests aimed at giving you a better understanding on each of the stages and how to present them. The Webquest toolkit opens your classroom to a more dynamic approach to learning for your students.

Teaching Models

"Teaching models prescribe tested steps and procedures to effectively generate desired outcomes. In general, models can be classified along a continuum from instructor-directed, to student-instructor negotiated, to student-directed"

Engagement Theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning

Engagement Theory: "Engagement theory has emerged from the authors' experiences teaching in electronic and distance education environments (see Shneiderman, 1994,1998; Shneiderman et al, 1995; Kearsley, 1997). The fundamental idea underlying engagement theory is that students must be meaningfully engaged in learning activities through interaction with others and worthwhile tasks. While in principle, such engagement could occur without the use of technology, we believe that technology can facilitate engagement in ways which are difficult to achieve otherwise. So engagement theory is intended to be a conceptual framework for technology-based learning and teaching"

Criteria and Standards Used in Evaluating Web-Based Instruction and Delivery Guidelines

The Electronic Learning Institute has developed six broad criteria that encompass 96 quality process standards used in evaluating online instruction and delivery. The criteria are: Flexibility of learner interaction and communication with faculty, peers, and course materials; Attention to detail in the course and its materials; Attention to detail in the web design; Detailed faculty communication to learners; Clear timelines and due dates; and Creating a sense of collaborative teamwork and 'groupness'. Is this something you would uses for your curriculum?

eEducators

20 Technology Skills Every Educator Should Have

During the last 15 years, we in education have moved at light speed in the area of educational technology. Whether you are involved in higher ed, secondary ed, elementary ed, or special ed, all of us find it difficult to catch up, keep up, and put up with fast-moving computer-based technology. Not since the introduction of the blackboard have we seen a piece of equipment make such a difference in how we teach. Today, not only do we use computers, but we also have laptops, wireless laptops, and tablet PCs. Do you have the updated skills needed?

Welcome!

Hi Fellow e-Educators!

Welcome to a place where shared ideas in online/electronic education is appreciated. Please, feel free to join in.